AMES, Iowa -- Gov. Chris Christie said that he is against universal background checks for Americans seeking to buy firearms.

Speaking at a town hall meeting at Brick City Grill on Saturday morning, a mother of two said that the level of gun violence in the nation "terrifies me" and asked Christie if he "stands with the majority of Americans, including the majority of gun owners, who support background checks for everybody buying a gun."

The mother's direct question seemed to catch the normally-unflappable Christie by surprise, with the governor and Republican presidential candidate stammering a bit at first before finally responding, "I don't support background checks for every gun sale."

A July Pew Research survey found that 88 percent of Americans -- including 79 percent of Republicans -- favor expanding background checks.

As recently as January 2014, a spokesman for Christie had said that he "supports New Jersey's already-tough gun laws," but on Saturday, he took a different view in Iowa.

"There's a lot of gun sales that shouldn't have to require background checks, Christie said. "Family members selling to other family members or friends. I don't know why those folks need to have a background check."

The governor insisted that the lack of background checks plays no part in the nation's plague of mass shootings.

"Criminals don't go through background checks," said the governor.

In June 2015, Dylann Roof shot and killed nine people in a Charleston, S.C., church with a .45-caliber pistol that he had bought with money from his father.

In July, FBI Director James Comey said Roof "was able to purchase the gun used in the attack only because of lapses in the FBI's background check system."

Roof was allowed to purchase his handgun due to paperwork and communication errors between a federal background check worker and South Carolina state law enforcement.

"But what about the private sales loophole?" asked the mother, noting that private gun sellers - who account for 40 percent of firearms transfers - are exempted from the federal law requiring licensed firearms dealers to perform background checks.

"Listen, I don't believe that that's what's causing gun violence in this country," responded Christie. "I don't believe putting the government more and more in between the American people and their Second Amendment rights is going to make this country safer."

When the mother noted that "the states with better gun laws, better background checks, have fewer gun deaths," Christie cut her off.

"I just don't believe that that's true," he said. "We need to enforce the gun laws we do have much more strictly, without any new ones."

An October 2015 analysis of Centers for Disease Control gun death statistics published by USA Today found that weaker gun laws were common among the states with higher gun death rates.